The official concert season is over now, and very soon the glitz and glamour and echoes of another stellar year will begin to fade.
Here’s a longer clip from their Eurovision 2011 performance. Would it even fly with N.American audiences?, or have we grown too musically illiterate to appreciate something like this? What do you think? Sadly, the tour doesn’t seem to be crossing the water any time soon. Trust the Europeans to pull something like this off – to sold-out crowds and standing ovations no less. With piano, harpsichord, and electronic beats.
Their creative performance visualizes and revives Johann Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier crossing the borders of serious music and youth culture. High culture meets urban art: In the clash of cultures Red Bull Flying Bach turns the international classical world upside down. Backed by the energy drink superstar (hey, if Red Bull sponsors something this cool and innovative and grand, I’m glad to give their fine product a shout out), it pairs breakdancing with Bach’s preludes and fugues 1-12 from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Part I. It’s select excerpts from the Red Bull Flying Bach European Tour that has been making its way through Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, and Turkey from August through to end of December. I stumbled across this YouTube clip on the weekend. Lastly, I include this video too just to remind us that despite all the early and rightfully deserved attention, he still has some learning to do. To get some of the background scoop on how this opportunity came about, click here. Here’s an outtake of his February 2011 debut with the Chamber Orchestra Kremlin, on tour in California at the time. Petersburg International Music Academy (SPIMA) Orchestra (Connecticut) are among the first to have come calling. The Chamber Orchestra Kremlin (Moscow), the Chandler Symphony Orchestra (Arizona), Arizona Musicfest, and the St. Jonathan is now getting invitations to conduct orchestras. In short, the video shows Jonathan – then 3 years old – conducting the 4th movement of Beethoven’s 5th symphony, with a glee and panache and innate ability that we can only hope is a harbinger of things to come.įast forward 1 year. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you see. If you’re new to the site, take a few minutes to check out the link. You might remember Jonathan from a previous posting here on sonicgypsy. He’s not tall enough yet for most of the rides at Disneyland, but put him on a podium and he could very well be a giant in the making.
B (David Bodeman from Mohawk Country Day School in White Plain, NY), is educating a new generation with creativity, and by the looks of it, a ton of fun. Talking about reaching a broader audience, this teacher, Mr. I’d love to hear from someone who has seen him live and get their opinion on him. As are his chats with the audience explaining the pieces. I’ve watched several of Rhodes’s YouTubes, and while I wouldn’t label him as the definitive interpreter of the composers he plays, his playing is respectful, engaging, and smart. Classical world can probably use that right about now. Yet, his agenda is a hard one to fault – reaching broader audiences, putting a fresh spin on the classical concert experience, and playing “ proper classical” without a huge stick up his, ahem, arse (- his words, not mine). On one hand I find him a fascinating character on the other hand his heavily promoted “bad boy” image is pushed enough to make my eyes roll. I’ve wanted to write something about classical pianist James Rhodes for a while, but haven’t really known what to write.